Meeting with the Norwegian Freemason society
Published on 15 Octber 2015
On August 19th we had a meeting with member of the Norwegian Freemason society, Helge Bjørn Horrisland, who is head of a project about the history of the lodge he is a member of. As far as we know, there were no confiscated books in Norway during the Second World War who left the country except for the collections of the Norwegian Freemason societies.
According to Horrisland the Nazis confiscated whole collections from the different lodges, and sent these books, documents and other material, to Germany first to get them examined. The intention was to use these books for scientific research as the Nazis looked upon the freemasons as a Jewish conspiracy, and had a plan to reveal what the freemasonry was about. To some extent this was done, but when the war intensified, these scholars had to participate in the warfare and could no longer be spared to do research on the Freemason societies. The confiscated Freemason books were therefore transported to various storages, also in what was then Czechoslovakia.
Horrisland can offer us a broad insight into the lost collections of the Norwegian Freemason lodges, and to the history of the collections which is to be found all over Europe. So far Horrisland has worked with repatriation of collections from Russia (former Soviet Union) and Poland.
Project Presentations in Norway (past, ongoing, future)
- September 10th 2015 Presentation of the project to Hans Chr. Vadseth, Norwegian newspaper editor.
- September 11th 2015. Presentation of the project to head of the standing committee on Foreign Affaires and Defence, Anniken Huitfelt.
- November 2015. Presentation of the project to the board of Stiftelsen Arkivet.
- January 2016. Presentation of the project for the public library in Vågsbygd, Kristiansand.
